


The Last Remains of Our Innocence Died Screaming

by Blue_Velvet_Future



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Love, M/M, Mild Torture but only mentioned briefly and not terribly graphic, Minor Angst, Posion, sex scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-07-08
Packaged: 2020-05-30 21:55:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19412173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blue_Velvet_Future/pseuds/Blue_Velvet_Future
Summary: This is not at all how they thought it would go. Their history is long, and their future is uncertain. But really. This wasn’t how they wanted it to go at all. When they thought about it going somewhere that was.





	1. Final Stop

**Author's Note:**

> It has been literal years since I wrote anything more than 500 words. So the fact that I sat down and wrote this almost entirely in one go, leaves me feeling a bit flustered. I’ve certainly never posted fanfiction in years. I mean. I used to use geo cities. All of this is very new to me. But honestly, I blame the show. Everyone involved put such love into it, that I simply couldn’t control myself. Also it appears I lost some formatting because I am very rusty and didn’t realize I would have to use HTML. ( so I’ve edited this because they have rich text and I wanted some italics. Again thank you for all the kudos and comments!!)
> 
> I would like to take a moment to thank Reincarnatedr from tumblr who was just the loveliest beta I could have asked for. He was very encouraging when I thought that, maybe this wasn’t any good at all. Any mistakes you find are definitely mine. He’s good but he isn’t a miracle worker. 
> 
> So, with out further ado....here is my fictional debut:

The bus rumbles. It jerks forward. Aziraphale, quite without thinking, reaches his hand back to steady himself, and finds Crowley’s reaching out to meet his. And isn’t that just the way it is supposed to be? After all this time?

He slumps into the seat, not correcting the demon, and not relinquishing the hand. The night felt wild and raw with energy.

  
———

  
“If you can’t help him, then **what’s the point of you**?” Crowley hisses, his fingers flinching in a pointed way at Aziraphale’s chest. There is something that looks disturbingly like heartbreak, on the demons thin face.

Aziraphale hangs his head, ashamed. “Of course I’ll do my best, dear boy. But this is ...this is direct contact with something Vile and Evil.” He gestures to the form on his couch. “I’ll do what I can, but it would take more than a choir of Angels to repair this damage.”

Whatever Crowley wants to say, and it’s obvious by the line of his body that he is straining under the weight of it, isn’t something he can actually form. When he opens his mouth, bitterness folds his words. “Whatever. I don’t care. Pitiful human.”

And he leaves, door slamming on its hinges hard enough to bounce back open, splintering the frame. Aziraphale stands and goes to the door, the demon is gone as fast as he came. He rights the door with a tiny wave of his fingers and turns back to his new charge.

  
———

  
They ride in silence. It’s heavy and it isn’t. Crowley’s hand is cool under his, he can feel the breath of the man beside him stirring in his chest. A thousand words press against his lips, and Aziraphale, who has read all the great works, the mildly entertaining ones, even the occasional abysmal ones, cannot find any that would stitch together the thoughts he is trying to formulate.

Crowley, for his part, is thinking about the coming future. The looming punishment of Hell. A Traitor they’d call him. A Traitor. They might brand him, that had been popular for awhile. But no. If they did just that, it would be getting off lightly. his mind says, and he shies away from it. There had been another demon, who had tried to go against the plan once. He couldn’t remember their name. They had hung him by his wings and peeled away whatever human flesh they found. They had peeled away each bit of their corporal outer layer, until the thing had finally stopped moving. Oh, but it was still alive, in a constant state of agony. Locked away in an eternal torment of agony.

Mayhap, they would just toss him in a vat of holy water and be done with it. _Death_ his mind whispers at him.

“Alright.” He said out loud. He had thought it would come off annoyed. Instead it was resigned. “Alright.” He said again, looking at the entwined hands on his lap. He had somehow forgotten that they were there. Touching. As they had touched over a millennium and nothing like it.

“It will be my dear boy. It will be.” Aziraphale sounds so calm. He sounds so...faithful. So Hopeful. It makes the bones in Crowley’s neck crunch against themselves in both abject horror and strange delight. “We’ll be alright.” He says again squeezing Crowley’s hand to the point of pain.

“Course.”

“We’ll think of something. Won’t we?” And then his blue gaze is fixed on him. Crowley would have let earth burn. Would have left. He would have. If Az hadn't ...the angel had been. _Death_ his mind whispers.

Absurdly, he wants to reach out and touch the angel’s cheek. Feel it beneath his fingers, the faint stubble that Adam had so generously created. It had been strange, staring at the Anti-Christ. He felt seen, known, and flayed open. No secrets in that gaze. He had been known. And the Anti-Christ hadn’t done anything. Hadn’t said anything, not in reality and not in his mind and not in his gaze. So what did that mean?

It’s been too long. He’s not answered Aziraphale. The angel’s eyes pinch tight and somehow manage to widen at the same time. He starts to withdraw his hand.

“We’ll fix thissss” Crowley doesn’t release the fingers anchoring him to the world.

The bus rumbles.  
——  
“Lovely.” A girl says, woman, really. “Do you for free, I would.” She murmurs, stepping closer to him. She’s blonde, softly built, with dark brown eyes.

She’s staring at Crowley as if she’s never seen a human male before. Which is absurd … he’s in a brothel. She reaches out and trails down his arm “The sweetness just spills from you darling.” And he can read her desire, but it’s not the normal kind of temptation. It isn’t a hot burning thing. It’s more of...a soft yearning. He can see how she would like it, the sex, but the after. She wants to lather him in kisses. She wants to wash his face and feet.

He has the urge to hiss, but he just drops his glasses so that the yellow of his eyes flare. But she doesn’t flinch. She reaches out and strokes his cheek, tenderness radiating from her.

“Beautiful.” And something sick and warm flushes through his human body.

Crowley leaves the establishment, all thoughts of temptation out the window. He doesn’t go back, but he thinks about her for several years. Though he never sees her again, something about the way she moved had reminded him of Aziraphale.

  
———-

  
The bus stopped, and it’s doors swished open. He stood expecting the angel to drop his hand.

“Is this alright?” Is what he gets instead.

 _Of course. Always. Don’t let go,_ he thinks. In reality he just nods slowly.

The journey inside is as hazy as any night of drinking he’s had in the past, except for that warm pulse coming from the hand under his, in his. It’s not a human pulse, though, there is that. It’s the otherworldly feeling of something eternal. He wonders if he pulses, and decides that since it is a pleasant feeling, probably not.

The door to his flat slides open, unlocked. He hadn’t meant to come back, hadn’t thought that had been an option.

Aziraphale looks around in mild curiosity. The living room is mostly unused. He spent most of the time in the office … which is when he remembers the mess.

“Wait.” He croaks, surprised at how rough his voice sounds. Where did that come from?

Aziraphale stops, obedient, turning to Crowley’s own with a puzzled look on his face.

“There’s a ...there's a mess.” He says trying to prepare the angel. “Holy Water.”

Aziraphale can feel his muscles tightening. “You wait here. I’ll clean it up shall I?” Then he’s dipping into the other room. He steps over the sludge of goo. He waves his hand and the floor is sparkling.

“It’s safe now.” He says and immediately wishes he could snatch the words from the air. Adam is safe. The world is safe. They are not.

He looks at the throne. It seems so perfect for Crowley. A wicked little prince, testing and teasing humanity just as Aziraphale tried to test and absolve it.

“Thank you. Do you … tea? Or something stronger?”

“Stronger. Please.” His hands dip into his waistcoat, and he pulls out the piece of paper again.

“How do you think….” He looks up at Crowley. “Do you think they’ll make me fall?”

Crowley can’t stand the fear lacing those words. They remind him of his own, even though his was a choice … of a sort.

“Worse I’m afraid.” He grabs two bottles from the beautiful sleek liquor cabinet. Holds one up and then the other, after a moment he brings them both along with two glasses. He gestures for Aziraphale to sit on the throne.

“I couldn’t possibly.” The Angel demurs, but at the pointed look, he sets himself down.

“Hell Fire.”

“I thought as much, and Holy Water for you I’d imagine.” Aziraphale clutches his glass, then looks at the spot where the Holy Water had turned another demon into little more than a wet sticky mess.

“I’m sorry.” He says, suddenly remembering his hurried phone call and Crowley’s words.

“‘Sss’alright” Says Crowley, feeling as though the angel is apologizing for- actually... “What are you sorry for again?”

Aziraphale looks at him. Crowley doesn’t seem to be kidding. “That you lost your best friend of course.” It hurts him to say it. Because, even though they’d fought, Aziraphale had always assumed he was...well if there was a word...his best friend. To learn differently was quite jarring, though only fair. He’d spent their entire time together trying to deny any kind of amicable feelings towards the demon, even though his every action countered any kind of verbal objection.

And now Crowley is confused. Because he had. And then he hadn’t. That had been a wild ride of emotion. Seeing Aziraphale’s disembodied form in front of him, he was sure he was hallucinating. And when Adam had done the impossible, or the rightly possible because ‘ _I’m the Anti-Christ_ ’ and given him back to Crowley. Well, the former no longer bore thinking about.

“I got you back anyway.” He says, and curses himself. Because he hadn’t meant to say that at all.

“Oh. Oh.” Aziraphell is looking at him like he’s just hung the stars again. Which … is strange.

“Angel ...wh...what did you think?” Because Crowley can’t even begin to hazard a guess.

“Oh well. I-“ There is a faint blush staining the angel’s cheeks and he looks at his hands. “When you said-and the last I had heard was our phone call that an old friend dropped by-”

“And you saw the pile of demonic sludge and thought...what? That I’d killed my best friend?” It was appalling. And to think Aziraphale thought he could do something like that! Well, he was a demon but -

“Don’t be stupid.” The Angel waves a hand, looking disgruntled. “I wasn’t sure what had happened. Only that someone else might have gotten to them first. But - It was me right?”

“Of course” Crowley growls in frustration. They’d been sitting at the bar, well, he’d been sitting. Hadn’t Aziraphale seen how distraught he was? He’d even made the off hand comment about sharing…..his thoughts slow down ...

“Oh.” He breaths, _life_. “Give me that prophecy again.” He demands, his hand outstretched.

  
———

  
Aziraphale looks up from the door way into the gentleman’s club.

“Sign here. Not you’re real name of course. Just your…” The man in front of him, little more than a boy to the angel but a man by all other accounts, waves his hand as to not say ‘pseudo-name”

“Right. Yes. Ah.” He pens down Eve in careful lettering.

“Eve. Haven’t had one of them for a while.” Laughs the man in front of him. “Go on, any time you interact don’t forget to call yourself Eve and honor the rule of names. No touching without direct permission, and, most importantly.” The man leaned forward into his personal space and pressed his cheek a breath away, not violating the touching rule, but also-also making it feel as intimate as a kiss. “Relax and try to have fun.”

And something about the way he says fun, rushes the blood in his mortal body. It makes his cheeks burn and offers a hint of wickedness. Not true wickedness, no, but some offshoot memory of it.

“Thank you...Gloria.” He checks his coat, and slips through the doors to the soft den ahead.

  
——-

  
“But ...how?” Crowley has explained his theory. Has, as far as he thinks he is capable of, offered just the right amount of temptation and exasperation and pure hard-headedness into it.

“I think, I think instead of...possessing one another….” Aziraphale bites his bottom lip.

“What? Have you got a better idea? A SINGLE better idea?” Crowley throws back in his face.

“Actually, my dear. I think I do. What if we didn’t possess one another. It’s just...this is rather -well that is to say- I’m not sure it’s possible but.”

“Please. Just, spit it out. Whatever it is I promise we _will_ consider it.”

“Oh. What if we just ...became one another. My heavenly essence and I put the “extra” effort into melding with you. If we do it right. Theoretically ...we'd have enough shared memories to offer a ground web. So we wouldn’t lose ourselves. And...it’d be more real than if I just made myself look like you. But the inside, that’d be me. And the outside would be you. We'd ...we'd be in one another in a way that I’m not sure two beings have ever been since-“

“Alright ...Alright…..” Crowley stood and paced behind the angel still sitting primly in his throne.

“How though? I’m not throwing the idea out in the cold, but how?”

“My dear, you’re always the one with the really clever ideas. You’re ever so good at being creative. I’m certain you’ll think of something.”

It’s the way Aziraphale says it with absolute sincerity and confidence. It staggers Crowley and suddenly he is glad the Angel’s back is to him, because he thinks for a moment that the slithering feeling in his stomach might be showing on his face.

“Fine. Yes. Okay. I need a minute.” He stomps off, pushing the revolving door to his little garden open. He makes sure it’s shut before he gives his plants the talking to of a lifetime.

  
————

  
“FAGGOT.” The hateful word is hurled with an accompanying fist. It takes Aziraphale so by surprise that he doesn’t even block it. It lands squarely on his upper check and he can feel the fragile human bones and blood vessels pop. It wouldn’t be so bad, but he was in the company of his very human friends ... whom he would like to see again. Which meant he wouldn’t be healing the bruise that was already blooming.

“I say.” His companion straightens and whatever might happen next is stopped because Aziraphale puts his hand out.

“Not to worry, God always has a perfect punishment for those who terry with hate in their hearts.”

His companion scowls. “God has left us all behind my friend. We’re very much on our own.”

“I don’t know. I suppose I just have faith.” Aziraphale takes an imprint of the man’s energy and stores it away for later use.

“Come, you’re to teach me that dance. And as I’ve said, I’m a very poor dancer.”

His companion sighs, and leads him back in the direction of the club.

  
————

  
Aziraphale doesn’t move. Not when he hears the plants tussling. Not when there is the sharp sound of clay on stone. Not when he hears the demon let out a trail of words too muffled for him to make out without putting in an inordinate amount of effort. He just sits. Not breathing. Not blinking. He’s stone.

He’s been staring at a statue. At first it was blankly. And then it’s with familiarity. It’s the statue from that night in the Blitz.

He’d been so afraid for Crowley. He’d been afraid for himself, but only in the abstract way of someone who fears doing quite a lot of paperwork and several harsh verbal reprimands.

And Crowley had danced into the church as if they hadn’t seen one another in a hundred years. Any residual annoyance with him had faded like mist on a hot day.

Then Crowley had saved his books. And it was the first time, honestly, the very first time in their six thousand year run, that Aziraphale thought that perhaps...the demon actually liked him for him. Perhaps the demon even...harbored real affection for him. He dared not name it Love no matter what Oscar had said. Because Aziraphale couldn’t have love from a Demon. He wasn’t _allowed_ to.

“Angel ...?” Crowley has returned and is standing, surprisingly, nearly in front of him. It’s apparent from the look of concern that Crowley may have been trying to get his attention for a time now.

“Yes. I’m here.” He says softly looking at the demon. What he meant to say was ‘Yes. I’m with you. I’m here with you.’

“I think ...I think I know how to do it. Just ...follow my lead. Don’t fight me. I’m not sure it will work. It...you have to trust me Aziraphale. Or I don’t ...I’m afraid it might not work if you don’t trust me.”

Of all the things Crowley had ever asked for, this was the easiest thing he could give him. “Of course I trust you. You’ve never lead me wrong. Not when it really matters.”

Crowley nods. He’d figure this out. They’d do this. Because the option was to not have any more tomorrows. No more sushi, no more blue eyes, no more watches.

“Take my hand. And when you feel me ...push with my energy...I dunno. Just...lean into it.”

Aziraphale nods. “Crowley. If I don’t get to say it-“

“Please. Just ...keep it. Whatever mushy stuff you’re about to say, keep it until after. Because if you say it now...” Crowley says this as if it could invoke bad luck on them. But the Angel nods and takes his hand.

For a moment, Crowley isn’t sure he can even hoist his own tarnished energies-soul-fallen celestial-ness out of his body. And then he makes a slow and tentative push into the angel’s hand.

True to his word, Aziraphale leans into the feeling. Not separating their energies but inviting them to mix. He feels the hot well of loss that the demon takes with him everywhere. The feeling of fire coating his tongue. And in return, he sends the water like feeling of grace. Crowley flinches and then settles into it, their ‘spirits’ collide in mid air. It takes breaths and breaths and breaths. It’s messy.

Crowley gets a fair giddy feeling looking backward on the past. All the soft love that’s filled Aziraphale, chocolate cakes and manicures, kisses and Crowley, images of himself- he’s settled before he can examine them more closely. Their molecules readjust to themselves and their essences are both re-encased within similar faces.

“Did it work?” He own lips ask, he sees that his own eyes are clenched tight. Probably against the ever constant pain of being demon, no matter how short of time they were entangled.

“You tell me.”

Aziraphale’s eyes snapped open. “Oh dear! Is _that_ what I sound like?”

Crowley laughs, stretching his arms above his head. He feels so soft.

“Should we practice being one another?”

“I’d say after knowing one another for a fair more than six thousand years certainly means that we shall not have to practice too terribly much, Angel.” It’s not bad. The words sound right and fit coming from his mouth

“Alright. S’not if I’ve not heard you sssssspeak. Oh. That’s…” Aziraphale lets his mouth-Crowley’s mouth-form a little hiss.

“None of that Angel. I’ve worked hard to not have that down there.”

“Perhaps some practisssss is in order then.”

  
————

  
“Well. Azira-fail.” Gabriel’s violet eyes peered at the paperwork in front of him. “It seems...that the two charges you had, which were not to go near the gate and not eat from the apple tree, were unsuccessful. You did both, so...” Those violet eyes flicked upwards. Distaste was clear in them. “As it happens we need an Angel on earth. We’ve heard there’s a demon down there doing great acts of evil. So, until further notice.” He brings down a seal on the parchment, hard enough to make Aziraphale jump.

“R-Right well-I’m sure-That is to say”

“Shut up. It’s you. We’re sending you to earth. Just to be clear, if it were up to me, your incompetence would be more harshly reprimanded. Since it isn’t up to me...Keep an eye out for the demon. Smite him if necessary. You’ve the flaming sword for that. Send updates. Do good. You know.” he waves his hand.

Aziraphale nods vigorously. “Yes, of Course.” Do Good. Thank God. He could do good.

“Why are you still here?” The annoyance in Gabriel’s voice dripped from every syllable.

“Of course. I’ll just...go then. Right to it.” Aziraphale lifted his hand in the air. The other was clenched tightly in his heavenly robes. He backed out of the room and turned. There in the center of the hall, was a spinning vision of earth. The parts God was currently interested in had little golden boards around them. He approached a Harold.

“Ah yes. New assignment. Just...going to pop to Earth. See what God’s good creatures are up to. Not that they’re up to anything I’m sure. Just ‘doing good’” Aziraphale jibes cheerfully.

The Harold looked bored and glanced down. “Fine. Touch here please.” He holds out the stone tablet. “Alright, now the globe. Here.” A flash is indicated and the next moment the Harold is alone again.

  
————

  
“Did you feel that?” Crowley-as-Aziraphale asks.

“A shiver. Something tingly all over. Not you?” Aziraphale-as-Crowley responds.

“No. I think ...I think Adam must have ...done something.” They wait. There’s another powerful shift of energy that rushes through them, blowing back the hair from their foreheads.

“Powerful little sod”

“He was quite a nice boy, wasn’t he?”

“Mmm. Dawn’s coming. I’d better go. Remember, stay low. We’ll meet up at one at the park.”

“Alright my dear.” And then Aziraphale does something peculiar-well-not really. He flicks his tongue out in the air near Crowley-as-Aziraphale. “Is that what I always taste like?”

“No. Call me if you need me.” And he’s gone before Aziraphale-as-Crowley can ask anymore awkward questions.

  
————

  
It’s his seventh night on earth. The sun has set and he’s got a fire roaring. He’s yet to enter town. He’s just been...well, doing a bit of wandering first. Just slowly. Making his way the human way. He figures it’s good practice, since he’s meant to be down here.

The wind is cold, but it’s easy enough to bring his wings around himself. He is not terribly lonely. In fact, he’s almost having a good time. No one has made a snide remark to him in the last seven days. That is largely due to the fact that he hasn’t seen any other celestial beings in nearly seven days.

He hears something in the shifting sands, and casts his eyes about. There, just at the edge of the campfire are two large, glowing eyes connected to a very large black and red snake.

“Well hello there.” He says before he can smell the brimstone. Aziraphale feels a moment of real fear, and then, because he is God’s creature, and She gave him the power of Love with a capital L, “won’t you join me by the fire?” He is not pleased to see the demon, not really. Except that a small part of him, thinks that maybe he is pleased.

“Come now, I know you’re a demon. I can smell it on you. Just tonight. We’ll call a bit of a truce? It’s a lovely night. Too lovely for smiting, or punishing. Or whatever you demons call it. What do demons call it?”

And the scales are peeling back to reveal a long, lanky human form with burnt red hair, and yellow slits for eyes. “I think-we just call it tormenting and call it a win.” Things pop in Crawley’s shoulders.

“It’s Crawley right?”

“Er...yea” And the demon offers him a surprised smile. He’s looking the angel over and...the smile that he levels at the demon is bright and warm and welcoming. He can feel the pulse pushing against his own demonic aura.

“Could...could you turn that down a bit?”

“What? OH. Yes. I’m so sorry my dear.” And the feeling dims but the smile doesn’t. And Crawley swallows, and drops on the sand near but not touching the angel.

“Did you get assigned here too?” Aziraphale asks.

  
————

  
Crowley-as-Aziraphale stands in the Angel’s bathroom. It’s more of a traditional Water closet that got dragged into the 20th century kicking and screaming. But it’s got a fluorescent bulb hanging and an untarnished mirror.

“Crowley, you’re so evil.” He says, but the light in his eyes isn’t right. He glances around, nervously. “And handsome.” But neither of these things are what he wants to say. Nothing he’s said so far is what he wants to say. He glances at the silly little pocket watch hanging from the waist coat. Twenty two minutes before he needed to leave.

He’d been at this for hours. Hours of standing in front of the mirror and trying to make himself say the words he wanted to hear from Aziraphale. He felt foolish, but after so many years of learning to lean into emotional pain, the razor sharp twist of want, desire, shame, guilt, and all those other human emotions...well, he could ignore them for now.

“Come on Crowley. Jussst do it.” He growls at himself. And THAT actually seems a bit more like it. The hiss was forced, but the look in his eyes. That self-hatred coming out of Aziraphale’s blue eyes, he leans forward. “Don’t be a fool. Demons Can’t love.” Aziraphale’s voice says, and it’s got a hint of disgust that layers it. “Angels can not love demons. And even if they could...” His own eyes-blue Aziraphale eyes-scan down over the mirror in front of him, and he can almost see his own reflection in the space between mirrors. “I could never love you.”

There, now the worst hurt was out. If they survived this, and if Crowley ever managed to force his own declaration out any plainer than he’s tried in the past-the worst would be over. He’d of heard the worst possible thing. That even with Hell and Heaven both removed, Aziraphale might not want...to be around with just him.

Only now it feels too out. He can feel the relief and shame at using Aziraphale this way. It makes him dizzy. It’s easier to ignore the way the angel’s … more intimate areas twitched with his own bungled want.

He pulled away and straightened the blond mop of hair. He’d have to ask about that later, the soft fleshy human bit between his legs. If they survived. When they survived.

Angel’s didn’t need to have genitals. It wasn’t a requirement. In fact, having them lead to rather a lot of other human emotions. Like hate, and fear, and desire, and all those little human brain chemicals that beat around in the neuro-receptors that they technically didn’t need to be using and still used them anyway.

He grabbed the cream jacket and left the bookshop.

Aziraphale-as-Crowley was already at the park. Hands stuffed into the front pockets, as he sometimes did.

He was well built. Still a bit serpentine in human form, all long limbs and flat lips, and sharp angles. He’d really crafted himself quite brilliantly. He looked tempting. Which was the goal, physically at least.

Crowley-as-Aziraphale lifted his hand and gave a tight little smile.

  
————

  
“But kids? I mean, I’m not generally a fan. But still ...seems Harsh. Maybe there’s something that can be done. Some plea or...” Crawley trails off looking glum.

“Really, we-well I mustn’t question the…”

“Do. Not. Say. It.”

“Alright well.” Aziraphale still looked troubled. “It would be such a shame...to thwart Her will though…”

Crawley raised his eyebrows. Trying to pretend like he wasn’t already trying to think of a way to save some of the stupid smelly humans.

“I mean, I’m an angel. I’m supposed to go with Noah. So, there’s no way an extra bunch of children could get on that boat. Definitely not through the last plank that’s meant to load the hay for the animals. And if they did, well it’s not like they’d ever find the single empty chamber. Barely big enough for an ox. You’d have to-“ Aziraphale shrugs.

“So what I’m saying is that it’s terribly lucky I’ll be on this boat. To be with Noah. And that there will be no need for us to withdraw that plank until the rain takes us wherever we’re meant to go. Oh dear, I do have to go. Best of luck to you.” The angel leaves in a flurry of panic and wings.

The demon leaves with a new spring in his step.

  
————

  
The fear Aziraphale-as-Crowley has for Crowley-as-Aziraphale when he’s taken, white sash tied against his own face, is very real. Even though they prepared for it, even though it was expected, he felt himself dashing forward, once long arm shooting up in outrage.

His two steps are taken down when the weight of something hits him in the back of the head, hard enough he can hear something pop and pain blossoms in his body. “Tickety-boo” He murmurs, watching the spot where the angels had been, before blackness closes around him.

  
————

  
“I need a drink.” Crowley says as the crowd disperses. Mary is still crying at Jesus feet. He’s not sure if it’s the mother or the wife.

“I’m just ...you go on. I’m going to just...here. For a minute.” The sentence is broken. And Aziraphale looks deeply upset. He can tell by the little frowns between the Angel’s eyes.

“I’ll wait.”

“Oh no, I shouldn’t keep you.” And now Aziraphale is looking away from Jesus.

“I’ll wait. However long you like.” Crowley says, soft and then unable to keep eye contact, turns to look at the grieving woman.

They stand for what seems like hours, well until the sun starts to dip to the horizon. Thunder rumbles but rain is a ways off.

“I think ...I think they’ve done a terrible thing with this.” The silence stretches again, Crowley isn’t able to think of anything comforting to say. “I know you and She don’t get on. But….she loved Her humans. For them to do this ...well ...It seems…badly done.” He finishes feeling something uncertain in himself

“All part of Her plan isn’t it, Angel?” And the way Crowley says Angel, with a capital A, as if his concerns are only a perfect reflection of God’s divine love. It’s very nearly gentle. It is very nearly kind, that same almost kindness Crowley had shown him at the top of the Garden wall. Aziraphale thinks he might be getting into trouble with this one, but he can’t quite help himself.

“I suppose.”

“Come on. I’ll tempt you to a jug of wine. It’ll help get you back to feeling right as rain.”

“Oh ...oh alright. Just this once mind you. It’s been a trying day.” Crowley is almost certain that Aziraphale has said ‘just this once’ several times now. He doesn’t comment, only offers a sly smile and leads them off.

  
————

  
Crowley is not prepared for Heaven. Not for the white walls, and the ridiculous hoverboards (his side invented those. Seems rude to have them up here.)

He’s not prepared for the looks that he gets. Aziraphale is a soft angel, in several ways. All around him are hard lines of human looking bodies. He sees a couple of cherubs off in a corner whispering. They look at him with fear, at Aziraphale with fear. Or are those cherubs afraid for him? It’s hard to tell, and they are gone before he can really gage it.

The heavenly hosts shove him into a chair, bind him with blessed ropes and then the room is emptied of nearly everyone. He tests his resolve, pleased to see that Aziraphale’s hands are not shaking. Though he quite wants to.

“Do you know, I’m actually looking forward to this.” Says Uriel. A gleeful little glimmer in their face.

“Azira-fail, I mean, after the great sword issue, you really are the worst angel.” The three of them share a delighted laugh.

“Oh. I see what you did there Gabriel. Azira-FAIL.”

“Thank you. I thought it quite clever myself.”

“You should be looking more concerned. You’ve been absolutely slumming it around with a demon for years. God, I bet She’s ashamed of you. Worthless Angel! Couldn’t keep the sword. Couldn’t keep those dumb little humans in the gate. Couldn’t catch a demon. Well-You’d have to want to catch that nasty little creature.” Sandalphon says, his white teeth with gold bared in a smile.

“Do you know, this has been a long time coming. We’ve ignored your more pointless Miracles, we’ve ignored your pathetic attempts at bettering mankind. But really? Stopping the apocalypse? And for what? That demon can’t love you. You stupid angel. He’s. A. Demon. They are incapable of love.” Gabriel says all of this with fierce exhalation. As if he’s one of those stupid televangelists preaching.

“We’ve really got to make an example of you. Only the best here in heaven. And you only made it this long because you were not here for us to see just how abysmal you are at being a heavenly creature.”

Crowley let’s their words wash over him. Nothing he hasn’t heard before. Well, lot’s he hasn’t heard before, but the hate isn’t new. The barely concealed disgust. He’s just glad it’s him sitting here and not Aziraphale.. He tunes into their voices again tilting his head. Keeping his face passive.

“You are NOT going to see this coming.”

  
————

  
Crowley is not in a good mood. He’s been sulking since Jesus’ death. He’d gotten up to some fun stuff with Caligula, nasty stuff. He really didn’t even need to be there. He watched countless horrors taken on by human hands.

And gotten a good report back to Hell for it. So he had some … time to just… not do that. For a minute.

So he followed himself until he walked into a street brimming pub.

He ordered, and sulked some more. Maybe he’d go to the desert for a bit. Just find a nice bush and pretend to be a snake for awhile.

“Crawley? Crowley I mean.”

The angel looks so...friendly. It’s annoying really. Here he is about to drown his sorrows-well not sorrows-and the stupid angel can’t be bothered to notice.

He’s doing his best to ignore the angel as much as he can ...till the joke. He turns his head, leaned back giving Aziraphale an appraising gaze.

The angel looks more than pleased. He looks absolutely delighted, a smile tugs unwilling from his human muscles.

“Oysters it is.” He stands, and offers his arm, as is the custom in Rome if one is escorting an older man. It’s not without effort that he ignores the soft pulse against his flesh. It’s not without effort that he keeps his tone blithe.

“Oh. It is so good to see you my Dear” Aziraphale says, dabbing at the corner of his mouth with the edge of the too long tablecloth. “It can get ever so lonely-“ A flush creeps up those pale cheeks, and the angel falters. “Not that I NEED a demon's company, mind you.”

“Course not.” And it stings but Crowley is used to the pain in one fashion or another.

“Well, it is. Nice to see you, I mean”

And the pain fades a little.

Crowley thinks that he might be in trouble, and he’s not sure why.

  
————

  
Demons are far less gentle in their mannerisms.

“Bloody Prat” Someone says and hits him again. The pain blossoms like a kiss across Aziraphale-as-Crowley’s ribs.

“They’ll call you soon… Until then, you’re mine.” The demon is uncharacteristically horrific. He’s got some kind of slug on his malformed human shape. Black ooze drips down from his nose, and his teeth are rotting, sharp little things.

“Wanted to do this for centuries.” It says in a voice that sounds like skinned knees. His breath stinks of rotten flowers and mulch. Then it leans forward, taking its time and pulls the shirt out of his pants. It rakes its dirty hands over Aziraphale-as-Crowley’s stomach. They shove the cloth further up dropping its humanoid face low and close. Its jaws clench and then a wet cold tongue that feels more like slime then anything human, there is a soft nibble, and then the teeth sink in slowly.

Aziraphale has been bitten before, has given a few in turn. This is not that. This is the bite of an animal who is wild with rage. He feels the teeth tear and he is certain that he is bleeding. He is also certain that he screamed, which makes his body double over with shame. He forces himself back to standing with his back straight.

“They said I couldn’t maim you. Guess that will have to do.” It says, chewing the flap of skin it’s taken. Blood, his blood, Crowley’s blood, is dripping down a rotting chin. The demon curls a hand into Aziraphale-as-Crowley’s hair and tugs hard.

The pain makes his head fuzzy. But Crowley wouldn’t cry out, wouldn’t look anything other than mildly bored. And so, Aziraphale doesn’t either. He shoves it down into a place he doesn’t look at very often. A place that always hurts when he thinks of Crowley being gone.

And he is very, very glad, he is here, in this body. And it’s not Crowley.

“Crawley, Crawley, Crawley. Little worm of a demon.” There’s another hit, across his shoulders this time. It sends him to his knees, which slam into the floor.

“Crowley.” He breaths through the pain. Forces himself to stand once more, and looks the demon in the eye. “If you’re going to try and torture me, at least get the name right Mate.”

It’s exactly the right thing to say. And exactly the wrong. The demon’s fist comes up but it doesn’t come crashing down.

“Lord said not the face! Nothing visible. A shadow creature, something from the edges of the room says.

It grunts in response, and picks up a whip. “How much time we got?”

“Enough.” Says the shadow creature, moving forward and assisting. They move him to a whipping rack that’s black from age and...other things. They lash down his ankles and lift his shirt again, it only takes a moment but they’ve got his jeans down around his thighs too, baring the pale flesh.

The whip is surpassingly human. Leather looking, no sharp barbs. It grins at him and brings the lash down, over and over across his legs and higher. Aziraphale-as-Crowley does not scream. He does not scream, and he is very, very proud of that.

“Just. Scream. Damn. You. Once. And I’ll stop. I promise.” Everyone in the room knows that statement for a lie.

They tire quickly. Unable to taste his defeat. Or shame. Or his scream.

“It is time” The shadow says. They wave their hand and he’s dressed again. Welts stinging against the feel of fabric.

It’s a very short walk down the hall, but it is enough time for Aziraphale-as-Crowley to gather himself for the real trial to come. Enough time to settle that careful mantle of nonchalant arrogance over his shoulders.

  
————

  
“What is this?” Aziraphale asks, opening the door to the home he has settled in for the time.

Crowley is standing, holding something in his arms that looks like a human. It groans and the look on the demon’s face is tight. Aziraphale steps back and lets them in. Crowley gently places the body on the bed in the room.

“You’ve to help him Aziraphale. Please. Please.” The demon hasn’t ever said please before.

That brings him out of his stupor. He moves to the couch and places a hand on the boy - it’s a boy, with beautiful blond curls hanging damp from fever over smooth olive skin.

Aziraphale snatches his hand away. The evil pulses through the boy’s body.

“What **IS** this!” He demands turning to face the serpent. The serpent, is on the floor, on his knees next to the chair.

“I didn’t do it. I mean I did. I sho-He was … _please_. Please, Aziraphale. _Please_. He’s not one of ours. He’s one of yours. One of yours. Just-Wrong place, wrong time, wrong me.” And the words are so broken. So heartfelt that Aziraphale is disarmed from any thoughts of a trick.

He puts his hand back down, and tries to call a miracle; All he is able to do is it’s just ease the pain.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry Crowley. I can’t-“

“What’s the point of you!?” Crowley shouts. Aziraphale is inclined to agree.

After Crowley’s made his exit, he returns to the boy. It’s by his miracle alone that the child can sleep. He eases the pain from the limbs but can’t remove the Evil that lives inside him now. It’s eating him up. If he lasts the night Aziraphale will be pleasantly surprised. Heavenly surprised.

He stays by the boy-he’s got to be about 24 in human years-all night. And at some point he takes his hand. Curiosity burns at him. Who is this? Why has Crowley just abandoned him to Aziraphale?.

The angel thinks. He steps back and gathers the items he needs to perform the last rights. It wipes all sin, it can bring those souls into the heavens where they belong. He does it seven times. If the boy had been hanging around Crowley he wanted no questions about his soul.

He makes a quick call to heaven, and calls in one of the very few favors he has left. It’s a cherub. They agree to assure that this boy - he doesn’t even know his name-will reach the divine after life.

He casts just enough into the boy so that those eyes open. A deep blue gazes back out. “Where is Crowley?” Is the first thing that tumbles from those plump and sweet looking lips.

“He’ll be back my boy.” He will not be back, but the lie feels more comfortable. “What’s your name? Your full name?”

“Phillip Esterford. Is he okay? He seemed so strange….” But the words trail off because he’s back asleep under Aziraphale’s hand.

He rings the cherub back with a name.

In the morning, when the boy has passed, Aziraphale makes arrangements to have him buried on consecrated ground inside his favorite little parish.

  
————

  
Crowley-as-Aziraphale watches the minor demon approach. Those ridiculous embodiment of horns on his head.

“Can I hit him? Just once? Always wanted to hit an angel…”

“Oh. Alright. Can’t see the harm.” Gabriel says, and waves his hand.

The demon approaches, but whatever he sees in those blue eyes makes him change his mind. “Never mind. Ought to just…” He casts the flames into the protected circle.

They exchange pleasantries, and Crowley things about how nice it would feel to just...PUSH Gabriel from heaven. Let him enjoy a long fall and the echoing emptiness.

He enjoys the look on their faces as he steps into the flames. The quiet horror. The fear.

It’s only after he’s stepped out and dusted off his jacket that he smiles again at them.

“Quite enough of that, don’t you think? Now, we’re all in agreement here, correct? You leave me, and mine well enough alone. Or there shall be consequences. Dire ones I’d assume.” His tone is pleasant, soft. He cleans the edge of one nail pinning the Arch-Angel with a dark look.

The rest of them nod. Finally Gabriel nods his agreement.

“I’ll just slip out, shall I?” He gestures to the elevator that hadn’t been there a moment ago.

“Of course. Of course. God be with Ye.” Gabriel says.

“She always is.” Comes the response without a glance backwards. Yes, that felt like a very Aziraphale thing to say. A job well done indeed.

  
————

  
It’s been years since the regency, when Crowley asked for the holy water. It’s ridiculous. He can’t just be giving that stuff away, and not to Crowley who was always flinging himself into the future, flinging himself about as if nothing mattered. 

It’s dangerous, and if something happened. Well, then they’d haul him back to heaven. Or _worse_ something happened to Crowley. That thought is dangerous so he shuffles his mind back to his dessert.

But the taste of buttercream can’t chase away his lingering sadness- _loneliness._ Crowley hasn’t spoken to him in years. And his friendship-er that is to say his company - has been noted.

So when he arrives back to the place he has called home for twenty years and is planning to open a bookstore in, he is pleasantly surprised to see the Demon. As if he summoned him.

“Heard you were opening a bookstore.” The demon says, and pulls a bundle of roses, all of the purest white, and a box of French chocolates.

“Oh, my dear.” And the softness that he can’t always hide slips out. Crowley may be a demon, but he is all heart. He wonders if Crowley has a heart, it seems like he does. He thinks to the night in the Beginning of the 14th century.

“Won’t you join me for a drink?”

“I’d love to Angel.” And Crowley follows him inside.

  
————

  
It’s through sheer will that he doesn’t run up the steps and through the waiting gates of Hell. Instead, he forces the languid pace that Crowley always seems to have. He doesn’t turn to look at the demons who may be watching him. He keeps his eyes forward ...always forward now. Nothing left to hold him back, and he feels a terrible thrill course through his-Crowley’s - veins.

His body feels stiff. Though the holy water healed the welts on his back, bum, and thighs, it did not seem to have any effect on the bite which throbbed in a distractingly persistent way.

It’s easy enough to find the park and sit. Crowley-as-Aziraphale joins him moments later. Perhaps Gabriel was right, he does need to lose a few pounds. Compared to the lithe form of the demon, Aziraphale’s own body looks plump and uncomely.

“Anyone looking?”

Crowley-as-Aziraphale presses his fingers to his temple. “No one.” They slide out of one another, through one another, and suddenly they’re snapped back into place. He catches sight, as they changed, of Gabriel but the sounds and voices were muted. He looks at Crowley but the demons got that soft tug at the corner of his lips. He can only assume he’s done as good of a job protecting Crowley from Hell’s reach as he can.

The bite mark burns against his Holy flesh. It’s easy enough to ignore most of the night, because for the first time, Aziraphale isn’t worried about Heaven or Hell seeing them. There will be no covert escapes. It will just be...a celebration, and he is so looking forward to it.

So, they dine at the Ritz. And it is wonderful. Crowley is relaxed, and the food is superb. Still, as the evening progresses, he can’t help feeling distracted. Every time Aziraphale moves he can feel the skin pulling. It aches. It hurts.

Finally, unable to take any more, Aziraphale excuses himself, “Bathroom.” He murmurs.

“But you don’t-Angel-“ Crowley shouts from the table, but he let’s him escape. Perhaps he was overwhelmed by their cheers. The world. But the way he said it had made Crowley feel like there were six thousand years worth of snakes in his belly.

In the bathroom, Aziraphell miracles the door locked and lifts his shirt. The bite mark is weeping and angry. He pulls a first aid kit out from under the sink, even though it’s the Ritz. There shouldn’t be one under the sink, it’s there because he needs it to be. He covers the bite, which has stretched a bit on his flesh, looking bigger on his side than it had when he’d been wearing Crowley’s skin.

It hurts to touch, but he presses the pad into it and tapes it to his skin. He tucks his shirt back and returns to the table.

“Shall we depart? I wanted you to see the new books that Adam gifted me.” He asks, still standing.

“Sure,” Crowley flags down the wait staff and pays, laying a little plastic card on the table.

“Think they’ll have suspended your funds?”

“Nah, these are all mine. Been keeping an untracked account for centuries now.” Crowley looks over him. “You feeling alright?”

“Just tired I think.”

“Oh. Do … I could just give you a lift?” The demon says, and he says it with his shoulders slouched, relaxed, confident, uncaring. Except for the fact that Aziraphale knows him too well, and knows it’s an act.

“I-Crowley. If it's alright with you, I’d rather you came...and stayed. I suppose I’m still just nervous.” That’s true enough and it is what he wants.

“Yeah. Whatever you need, Angel.”

And oh, isn’t that the sweetest? AZIraphale ignores the way it makes his stomach roll unpleasantly.


	2. Breathe

They drive in silence. Crowley looks up at the unblemished building and plans to get very drunk inside its walls. He plans to get Aziraphale very drunk. He is successful on both accounts. 

“Do you know, I’ve not had this vintage in years.” Aziraphale giggles, and then winces, but his next words are directed at Crowley “Alright dear?”

“Course, just … weird. Last time. Flames. Big roaring flames.” The demon sort of hunkers inward looking at everything. “You were gone. Couldn’t find you. I just-“ Crowley trails off, feeling a bit lost. 

“I’m here now.” Soothes the Angel, removing himself from his chair and joining Crowley on the couch. Tentative and slow, he presses his side, the undamaged one, snuggly against Crowley. He drapes his hand over that boney knee.

“I’m here, and you’re here. And we are alive.”

“Alive and unharmed. I’ll drink to that.” He lifts his glass, and misses the look on Aziraphale’s face, which is full of fire and growing dislike. Crowley would probably love to learn about the bite on his side. Would whoop with laughter, the devilish beast. His hand squeezes too tight, and Crowley looks at him expectant.

Aziraphale moves away, and forces himself to sober up. “Bed’s in the back. If you’d like to sleep.” But Crowley lays down on the couch and falls asleep right there, trying to ignore the abrupt change in mood.

The next day Aziraphale is waspish. Short and sharp with Crowley, which is  _ fine _ . Except Crowley kind of thought he’d be a lot more  _ soft _ .

They do not touch at all. The one time he tries, the icy stare freezes him in place, because he’s seen that look before. In the bathroom when he was gazing through the mirror of himself. It makes Crowley’s skin crawl unpleasantly and desire pool in his stomach.

The moment is gone with a shake of the head, and to make up for it, Aziraphale takes him to lunch.

By the third day Aziraphale can’t stand it, the way the demon is always hovering. The pain is always constant now. It comes to a head when Crowley jokingly grabs at him, misses his hip and lands right on the bite. The angel gets one breath out.

“ **_Fuck_ ** ” and then he is on his knees gasping for breath. Struggling to see in a well, in a sea of nausea.

“Angel,  _ what _ ?” Crowley’s on his knees in front of him, pushing blond curls out of his eyes. This is the closest they’ve been. The most touching they’ve done since that first night.

“Nothing-fine.” Aziraphell tries to lie, but Crowley is a demon. He can feel sin, and pain, and he tunes into the Angel. His fingers are cool against the hot flesh. How had he not  _ noticed _ ? Did he not  _ want _ to notice?

He casts his mind backwards, even as he is gently pulling and maneuvering Aziraphale to the chair in the kitchen. It’s easy to see the growing disaster in hindsight. He gently pushes up the crisp white shirt, and peels the adhesive pad away. 

Crowley is horrified at what he’s looking at because the bite is black and open and oozing. Little trails of black run up veins looking for all the world like they want to take root in his angel’s heart if only they can reach it. 

“I know who did this. Angiostrongylus. It’s the name of a parasite that lives in a certain type of slug, and a demon from the third circle.” 

“Really dear, I just- **_STOP TOUCHING IT!_ ** .” Aziraphale demands loudly, his voice sharp. He angles his body away from Crowley, looking at him darkly. “I’ll not have you doing that. Foul fingers-“ Something dark passes through those blue eyes.

“Oh. Oh Angel. You should have told me right away.”

“I thought it would go  _ away _ .” It’s not a whine exactly. It’s something between annoyance and fear.

“Alright. We can fix this. We’ve fixed so much, this will have to be a piece of cake.”

“I like cake.” Aziraphale says trying to fight the urge to slap at Crowley’s hands. He feels a well of darkness gathering quickly. All those terrible things he’s been thinking these past few days, the ones that he has pushed to the furthest reaches of his mind, tumble forward.

“Angel, this is toxic. It’s...you’re going to feel weird. It’s going to be... We’ll have to purge your system of it. It’ll get worse before it gets better.”

“And how, pray tell, do we do that?” The gaze that gets leveled at the demon is...furious. Crowley feels something dark tighten in his chest.

“Uh. Pull it out? In a way. It’s vile stuff. Stuff the plague was-they used it-“ Crowley can’t fall apart right now, because Aziraphale is not himself. He is hot and angry and losing his grip on love. But for a second his mind strays to human Phillip, who simply perished. Who Aziraphale couldn’t fix. And he’s still a little angry about that too.

“So do we burn it out with Hellfire? You’d like that. Couldn’t let Heaven have me, no. You’ve got to have my destruction on your time. In  _ your _ fingertips, don’t you?”

“Aziraphale, you’re not feeling like yourself.”  _Love_ his mind urges. How do you purge vile waste from a holy being? A holy being of love? And the answer, the only answer he can think of is Love with a capital L. What can be more loving, then to put his lips to it and draw the poison out. What indeed?

“I-I think you’re right. I’m sorry my dear. I didn’t mean that.” Aziraphale looks shaken. Crowley wonders what it’s like in his head. All the thoughts he’s filtered through. Because it does come from somewhere. It must feed on  _ something _ or it wouldn’t have taken root.

“I’ve only got one idea and you are NOT going to like it.” Technically he had two ideas. But plan A was much better. For him and for the angel.

————

Five years after Phillip is buried, Crowley shows up on his step again.

“Let’s go for a ride.” Aziraphale doesn’t hesitate. He only nods.

“Do you-“

“Nope. Not here to talk about ‘it’”

“Alright.” They ride for three days, stopping only to change their horses. Aziraphale doesn’t speak unless Crowley directs something to him. It’s enough to just be with him, in this moment. He can feel something like love-the painful kind-coming off of Crowley. But that  _ can’t _ be right, because Demons  _ don’t  _ love.

They’ve settled onto a hilltop. Crowley manifests some wine, and a bit of someone else picnic for Aziraphale.

“It’s going to spread. And spread and spread. Unless something ...is done”

“I’ve tried my dear. I was even given a raised allowance of Miracles. But I can’t heal everyone.”

“....It...it can’t be stopped like that. It’s going to be worse than you think.” Crowley says, and there is something like hopelessness in the set of his shoulders.

“Fire’s the only way. And I got a fucking promotion for this one.”

“So many lives….” Aziraphale responds, catching on rather quickly this time.

“More if nothing’s done. More and more and more. It’ll just keep spreading.”

“They’re burning those Yeshuite fellows. And beating themselves silly, in the hopes for divine intervention.”

“Give it to them.” And then Crowley is gone. Literally just gone. One lone black feather drifts to the earth.

Aziraphale collects it, and begins the ride back home planning his course of action. Fire could be a last resort. First he would try love. He would duplicate to the heavens. If several of them got together, they could fight this back.

The feather is tucked safely inside a chest in his home, under several other Holy Relics and books he’s come to favor. Aziraphale purposely doesn’t think about why he’s saving the feather or the heart sick feeling he gets when he looks at the demon. He doesn’t quite understand it himself, so it’s easy not to think about. 

———-

“You want to ...try and  _ suck _ the poison out?”

“I’m a demon. It can’t really hurt me any worse than...well.” Crowley gestures at himself. “And anyway, I can get a tool if you prefer, but I’m afraid I wouldn’t be able to taste it and make sure it’s all out.”

“This is just another way for you to get that Greedy little mouth on me isn’t it?” Seethes Aziraphale, a dark shadow falling against his features. “Press your mouth to the bleeding wound so you can devour me. I-oh” He shakes his head. “What is the matter with me?” There is fear this time, and Crowley doesn’t look at him when he responds.

“It’s not like the Black Plague really. This is...a concentrated effort. Angiostrongylus can twist desires. Take something you love and poison you against it.” Crowley doesn’t linger on the implication of love, and him. Aziraphale is crafted from love, _ for _ love. No surprise it will be worse from him. "Take something you have hidden from yourself and bring it to the front. He doesn’t really use it on demons very often. Figures he’d try it this time.”

“Do it. Whatever is needed. And Crowley...I  _ am _ sorry. I can’t seem to control myself, of the things that I say. This is not how I wanted…” But the surge of whatever he’s trying to say seems to be counter to what the poison is telling him. His blue eyes go a faint shade of black.

“Come on demon. Give it a try. I’ll let you this once. Hungry thing.” He pats the wound, and flinches and glares as if this, too, is Crowley’s fault.

“They taunted you. The other demons. Called you Crawley.” Aziraphale forces out. Trying to gain some control. “And I stood, and told them to call me by your name. I was ever so proud of myself.”

“‘M proud of you too Aziraphale.” Crowley murmurs, as he pushes the angel back a little. Touching as little as possible.

“What if this all goes pear-shaped? What if you can’t get it out and I’m—Changed.”

“We’ll figure it out. Made it through worse. Plus, you couldn’t be that big of a bastard. I’ve already given up Alpha Centauri for you.”

This is the wrong thing to say. Aziraphale’s eyes are filling with tears, and then swimming in noxious blackness.

“You’d give up a lot more if I just asked, wouldn’t you? Told you to bend over and spread those pretty little legs of yours.” It is everything Crowley wants and exactly nothing like he wants. This isn’t Aziraphale. This is that  _ demon _ .

“Whatever you like, Angel.” Crowley says, lifting the shirt and settling himself down on his knees, ignoring the implication of what this looks like. Because he just wants Aziraphale safe and back. 

“Oh that’s a good look for you. Supplication. I enjoy that quite a lot. Should have had you here - OW.” Crowley stopped whatever filth was about to spill from those lips by pressing a steel knife to the mouth marks.

“ **_STOP IT._ ** ” Aziraphale has both his hands in Crowley’s hair in a vice grip. He jerks hard. Crowley feels something pop in his neck, and his blood is pooling lower than his belly. He squirms.

“Aziraphale, Angel.” The darkness fades a little.

“You like that, don’t you?” They get a little darker.

“Aziraphale, I like  _ you _ .” It hurts to say that, like this. With his need at war with his wants. But Aziraphale comes first and self loathing comes later. Anyway, the vulnerability breaks through because the hands loosen and free him.

“This is terrible. Crowley I … there’s some...it’s blessed rope to bind an angel. It’s in the chest in the bedroom. I - let me go get it.”

“I’ll get it.”

“No. I’m - I’ve got Holy Relics in there. I don’t want you hurt.”

Crowley waits because this is a form of love - protection - and it’s going to bring the Vileness back.

“Except if you want me to. And you do, don’t you? Want me to press myself against you and  _ hurt _ you, in all the ways you deserve.”

Crowley pulls the angel into something that isn’t quite a hug pressing them forehead to forehead. “Come on. I need you to hang in there. No more of that talk, but don’t push it down either. Just...sit with it. I’ll be fine. Please.”

Aziraphale nods, not trusting his voice to speak.

This is quite possibly the worst that he has ever felt. He watches Crowley go. He clutches the edge of the wooden chair under him till he can feel splinters wedging themselves under his nails. He breaths into the pain.

Because this is nothing like Love. This blackness in him is corruption through and through. It’s so at odds with how he’s lived his life. He wants to smash and hurt and curse. He wants to set the bookshop on fire, with him and Crowley in it. He wants to hurt Crowley, to have him under him and over him and rip his wings from his skin and make a blanket. He wants to drink up the tears he knows he can make Crowley spill. He wants to tear him apart with the years, and years, and years of shared thoughts and lives. It tastes like wine.

It feels like hopelessness. His tongue is thick and tar like. He wonders what Crowley feels like, but skirts away from that thought because he can feel it rising, as he has started to rise out of his chair to search out the demon.

The chair cracks. But he’s still in control. It’s easier with Crowley out of the room.

This is not at all how he wanted this to go.

————

“It’s a gentleman’s club. Very discreet.” The man slides him a card, and takes his purchase and walks out the door.

On the front it has the name. On the back it merely says ‘Dancing Lessons.’ Aziraphale is about to throw it in the trash but hesitates. Wouldn’t Crowley be ever so surprised if he could dance?

The man had laughed himself silly last time when Aziraphale mentioned wanting to learn ... or have the ability. When he’d seen his laughter had actually stung, he’d shrugged and said Demons once were Angels, and they could dance. So maybe it was something he could force himself to be good at through diligence.

Which seems more the way of it. So he slipped the card into his pocket, and thought about crêpes.

He thinks about crêpes for an entire week before he makes it to the door. He shows the little card, signs his name as Eve and explores something he’d not dared to before.

————

Crowley had the rope bundled in a shirt. It wasn’t his, it was a robin blue one from Aziraphale’s own closet. He doesn’t mention the black feather, sitting in a glass box right at the top of the trunk. He doesn’t mention it because he doesn’t know what it means. 

“Hurry. _ Please. _ ” Aziraphale didn’t trust himself. Couldn’t bring himself to open his eyes. He sings hymns in his mind. But he can’t seem to recall all the words. He tries to ignore Crowley.

It was tricky business getting the ropes arranged right, and not touching the rope himself. He did fairly well until the last one. The shirt slipped, and the smell of burning flesh filled the room.

Aziraphale’s eyes snapped open and looked down at him. It was only a moment, but the hand left free flashed out and struck Crowley. His glasses went sliding into an open doorway, and his breath came in a short surprised gasp.

“I told you to be  _ careful, you idiot serpent.” _

“Yeah. I also brought this.” He held up a thin white tie. He stood and avoiding the flailing hand, promptly gagged Aziraphale.

“Sorry. I just, I think it’s just better this way.” It is an uncomfortable reminder of the look he wore when the angels came for him. Crowley hadn’t seen it, but now, he supposed he had.

He secured the final rope without further incident.

“I’m so sorry.” Crowley whispered, and then cut the bite again. He carved the entire piece, opening tooth mark to tooth mark until there was a thick black mouth outline. He made two lines, creating an X at the center. He dipped his head, and sucked.

Poison flooded his mouth, he pulled away and spat it on the floor. Aziraphale made strangled noises. Crowley ignored him. He worked at the wound with his tongue, pushing and pulling and spitting in turns.

It took all the next day. Until finally,  _ finally _ , the flavor was just blood, and something faint and golden, like Grace. The taint was gone, at least from the wound. Crowley had done his best, but knows he has ingested some of it. He can feel the twisting of his own desire.

Aziraphale had passed in and out of consciousness for the last few hours, but now he comes a little more too. He takes a deep breath and is relieved to find that he no longer wants to tear anything -  _ anyone  _ \- apart. 

Crowley felt sick, felt his desires heavy on his back. It worked differently on demons. He bet that they didn’t know how well that poison worked on Angels. They wouldn’t have kept it hidden for so long. For demons, it just heightened those wants. Made the pain burn until the demon in question did something truly wicked. Like burning down a church, or fucking for days until nothing but a pile of extinguished souls hovered around him. Once done, the Vileness would just...eek out and evaporate. That had been plan B, to let the angel destruct and destroy, but Crowley hadn’t been sure that it would have worked, or caused irreparable damage.

He took a minute to rest his face on the cool corduroy of Aziraphale’s pants. Now stained with smatterings of blood and gore. The bite mark itself was a purple mess, torn to shreds after the few times Crowley had been forced to bite to keep the blood going, to keep the wound alive so that it wouldn’t settle.

Now he wished he'd just let the angel have him. In all those terrible ways with all those terrible words. Because what Crowley thought of as truly wicked, was love.

Aziraphale made a noise. Without glancing up, Crowley lifted his hand and pulled the gag free.

“Untie me. Please. I’m so _very_ sorry. Please.” Weary beyond anything he wanted to be, Crowley stood, and did as requested.

Aziraphale’s hands came up immediately to his face, where a faint yellow bloom was developing. “I’m so - so sorry.”

“S’okay. Gonna ...gotta.” He waved his hand at himself. Aziraphale waved his hand and the bile and blood disappeared. He slid one hand behind Crowley’s back.

“Don’t. Angel, please.” He felt brittle. Seems like he’d been saying please too often.

“Shhh. Don’t fight me dear. You’ve done very well. Thank you ever so much.” Aziraphale was soft. It was surprisingly easy to pick the demon up, finding little to no resistance.

“Rest now. There’s a good lad.” Crowley’s head rolled and buried in shoulder of the angel. They must look ridiculous.

Although sleep wasn’t a requirement, it certainly felt good to be laid down on clean sheets.

“Rest, Crowley.”

“Won’t.” Crowley said, even as his eyes closed. He didn’t let go of Aziraphale’s lapel. It took some maneuvering but eventually, Aziraphale just crawled into bed, miracled a first aid kit and pressed gauze to the bleeding raw, but hopefully finally healing, hole. When he was done, he pulled Crowley close.

—

Aziraphale is quite enjoying his dancing lessons. They are very,  _ very _ hard. And very,  _ very _ delightful.

The little pecks of kisses at the end are just a dollop of cream on top of the dancing. And the  _ love _ , there is so much love in the Club. Oh, there’s lust, a Fair amount of that. But underneath is a delightful freedom of love.

And passion.

It’s been almost a century since he heard from Crowley at all. So he spends the occasional evening among men. Pleasing and pleasant men. He’s had a few advances, but he was able to demurely gesture them away, to more suitable matches. It was the only time he wished he had been a Cherub, to guide them more easily. But Love was a feeling and he did alright with his match making.

Tonight wasn’t a night for dancing. It was a night for Smoky flavored Whiskey.

A young man flopped elegantly next to him on the couch. “Eve.”

“Oscaria” The gentleman introduced himself. “You never partake.”

“Oh the worldly flesh isn’t really why I’m here.”

Eyebrows rose on a long face. “Isn’t that why we’re all here? On earth? For worldly pleasures?”

“I do not think that God-“

“God. So your religious then? Pious and delving into a bit of depravity.” The censure was clear on those thick lips.

“No. Not depravity. This is...love” Aziraphale shrugged lacking a better word. Oscaria looks at him as if he’s finally done something interesting. 

“Come on, Angel.” Oscaria stood, and towered. He was tall, so very tall, and he had shaggy black brown hair and soft warm eyes.

“Let me love you for a night then.”

And strangely, Aziraphale accepted his hand. Let him pull him from the couch and lead him down the hall. He had a flurry of panic for a moment and pulled himself to a stop, but the hallway was dark and uncrowded. Oscaria stopped with him. He pushed him back into the wall, dipped his head and tasted his mouth.

Aziraphale found that he quite liked that  _ a lot. _ He opened his mouth wet and wide, and Oscaria laughed, the sound gentle and breathy against his open mouth. “You truly are Pious.”

“Yes. It’s not...a bad thing. I hope.”

“Not at all...it’s...enticing.” And then his mouth was claimed again. He felt a tingling sensation, and realized that he wasn’t - well - equipped enough for this. He tried to push away, but his hand only fisted in the other’s shirt as the lips moved from his mouth, to his jaw, down to the point below his neck. “Come Angel. Let me love you for a night.”

He stepped away and waited for Aziraphale to follow, which the Angel did, feeling dazed. He hadn’t known it could feel like that. No wonder the humans were always doing it. He willed himself into a shape that was both matching his body, and hopefully pleasing to others.  _ Other _ . Just this once. He had to know after all, that was part of his job. To know the humans and their joys and their sadness.

“What’s got your mind? I can feel that you’ve wondered away. Second thoughts?” They’d reached the room. It had a 7 hanging on the door.

Taking that for a sign, Aziraphale tried for the breeze attitude that Crowley adopted so well. “Not at all. But look ...you must know, I’ve not-“

“I know Angel.”

“It’s Eve.”

“It isn’t a name. It’s a title.” The other quipped, and opened the door.

It was strange. They undressed one another, fingers seeking buttons and skin.

“Would you rather I called you Eve?” Oscaria asked..

“No. Would you rather I call you Oscaria?”

“Oscar. Here in private. Let me make a worship of you Angel.” He pushed gently and Aziraphale felt the bed rise up to meet him.

Every time Oscar called him Angel something funny lurched in his stomach.

“Tell me truly, is there no one you Love? No one you’d rather do this with?” Oscar asked with his lips pressed against a nipple, speaking into the skin.

“Ah, oh. Well. No. I-He’s”

“There  _ is _ someone.”

“No. Nothing like that.” Aziraphale scuttled further back until his head hit the head board.

“Tell me.”

Aziraphale did, feeling compelled. “If he could-but he can’t love. He isn’t like that. He. We….very different you see-oh do that again” He demanded as Oscar licked his inner thigh and blew a slow breath.

“I’m going to have you every way.” He bit down slowly, gently, watching Aziraphale’s chest.

“Won’t you tell me your name Angel?”

“Azira-ah-phale” He gasped out. As a reward Oscar dipped his head and kissed the top of his newly formed, never used, cock.

“What’s he look like? This lover who isn’t a lover. This friend who can’t love like us.”

“He-oh why do you want to-“ it was hard to think with the little ways Oscar kept touching him.

“You like wine, like love. I can see desires. Spilled fresh across sheets.”

“Only like this can we be ourselves. Only fresh and open.” Oscar slid in a finger, well oiled, to the knuckle. Aziraphale bucked in surprise.

“So spill your secret heart and know that love will follow.”

Aziraphale did. “He’s..serpentine. Tall and Wiley- uh Reddish hair, but not. Not flam-oh goodness-it’s burnt red. Like at market.” He’s thinking of Rome where blood from fresh meat stained and dried on the tiles.

“He calls me Angel. He is wicked to the core. It’s... He’s on the other side. As it were. And he-he wouldn’t do this.” That’s why he’s here. Aziraphale suddenly knows why he took Oscar’s hand when he had firmly rejected all others. He’d called him Angel, and had been sensual and tempting. Oscar had reached into the bedside table 

Large warm hands turned him over. “Would he take you like this? If he could. If you asked?” He pressed slowly, finger slick. Until he was knuckle deep, then the knuckle is a finger, and then a second. And they are delightfully slow.

Oscar bent over the smaller man’s back, pressing his own hardness into Aziraphale’s hip, so that he could still keep the right angle to pump his fingers in and out, waiting until the smaller man pushed back eagerly.

“N-no.”

“Close your eyes then. Perhaps, just for tonight. I can be the image of him. Picture him clearly. His hands. These hands.” A third finger joined, and it felt like too much. It felt wicked. It felt Divine. Aziraphale ground his hips into the mattress and then rocked backwards.

It was easy to picture. The demon’s smell, the way his eyes would sometimes glint behind those  _ stupid  _ glasses he always wore, unless they were very alone and had been for some time.

“Angel” Oscar breathed, slowly lining himself up and then pushing inward. For a moment, that deep voice could have been Crowley’s for all that he had wished.

“I’m going to fuck you until you come, and spill yourself all over the sheet, and then when you’re finished, I’m going to take you, and take you, until I’ve reached my death.” And it’s so dramatic, it’s so easy to speak that into Crowley’s shape. He bucked against the weight behind him.

“C-call me A-ngel again-please”

And he did. Many times. Until Aziraphale did collapse, tears of want and of self pity and oh of love. Such rich love. It flooded him in a new way. New hormones dancing and pulsing and bright. There was no way he would ever live without this stupid meat appendage again.

————

Crowley slept for two days. Aziraphale did not move, he prayed, very quietly to God, Herself. “I know we must have fallen out of favor. Why else would these trials keep coming? And so close together? But please, I’ve asked for naught in all my time, content to trust your will. But just this once. Please. Please.”

The scent of roses wafts through the window that Aziraphale was almost certain was closed, but maybe he’d left it open. His eyes dropped and suddenly he was sleeping, curling his body towards Crowley.

That’s how the demon woke up, with a sleeping angel pressed hard into his arms as if he might disappear. Crowley felt better, physically, thought he could stand, thought he could leave.

But when he edged away, Aziraphale followed him, keeping tight against his side. So Crowley stayed a moment longer, basking in this glory that he didn’t think he could rightly accept.

Finally, he couldn’t stand the pulsing energy from the man-shaped celestial body next to him. With considerable will, he forced himself out of bed, and out of the shop into his Bentley. He sat there, for ten minutes, trying to breathe.

Slamming his hands down on the steering wheel. “Shit,” he did it again, and again and again until his hands were sore.

How could Aziraphale sleep next to him?. Unless … perhaps he hadn’t actually realized the need that Crowley had. Yes. That was it. It wasn’t so disastrous as all that. The angel hadn’t seen his desire for  _ love. _ Everything was fine.  _ Fine.  _

He started his car. Obviously if Aziraphale had thought that he really wanted that, he’d be in his flat. Tucked safely to be sure, but tucked away.

So instead of running away, he drives to the pastry shop and buys one of each flavor, and returns  _ home.  _ Except it isn’t his home. It’s memories of smoke and fire and years and years and years of Aziraphale.

He lets himself in, and sets the box on the table. There’s a sound in the kitchen, and he follows it. Aziraphale looks like he’s just woken up, hair sticking in all directions, and a line of red from the pillow case creasing his cheek.

“You came back.” And the tone doesn’t match the smile. The tone says ‘ _ I thought I’d never see you again’ _ and the smile says ‘ _ I knew you would come back.” _

“I’m so sorry, so sorry Aziraphale. That must have been … it must have been horrible.”

“It was. But you did nothing wrong. I owe you such a great deal. Thank you so much.” And it’s unbearably sweet. It makes Crowley want to crawl away, or towards him. It’s confusing and lovely, and he can’t stand the look on the Angel’s face.

“Look, I uh-I’ve still got some of the poison in my ssssystem. I’ll be, I’m going to go off for a bit and-“

“ **_No_ ** .”

Crowley is so stunned that he just stares.

“Absolutely  **_not_ ** . I will not have you out there in the world doing something foolhardy and self destructive. Tell me what you need. I’ll do it. I’m here for you, like you did for me.”

“It’s not like that Aziraphale. You can’t just  _ suck this out of me.” _

What Crowley wants to self destruct himself on isn’t sex, or violence. It’s the only thing he doesn’t feel like he has a right to ask for. It’s the entire reason he’s stuck around this stupid angel for so long. It’s Love. To be loved, just as he is.

The reality of that needs, shifts and suddenly Aziraphale can see it, can feel it in a way he hasn’t felt it in years. It’s sudden and palpable. And Crowley, that stubbirn bastard is going to fight him every step of the way on this. 

“How long can you exist with that poison in you? Before it...I don’t know. Corrupts more fully.”

Crowley shrugs pulling his face into something that looks like a sneer. “Why Angel? Going to keep me here? Locked up with burning ropes searing into my skin, so I can’t hurt myself?” It’s the worst thing he can fling him. That Aziraphale might cause him pain, more pain, just to ease his guilt.

——

It’s a fair market day, and Crowley is happy to walk amongst the humans, little ocular lenses perched on his nose. Unique in that the peasants around him haven’t ever seen them before, no one’s seen them before, he’s just invented them.

The scent gets to him first. It’s crisp and warm and very familiar.

“Sir, let me tempt you to an apple. One bite, it’s all that will take” The voice calls out to him, and he’s young, tan and beautiful. Blond hair caught about his head like a crown, blue eyes dancing behind wide cheeks.

“Careful lad.” He calls out as he steps closer.

“It’s only true, sir. Eve herself would find herself unable to resist.” And the man slices off a piece and holds it, caught between his thumb and the knife, out for Crowley to take.

Crowley leans forward, eyes locked with the sellers, and took the apple out of the boys hand with his mouth. Slowly, deliberately. He leans back chewing.

“That’s blasphemy you’re close to. A sin by any right, you-what’s your name?”

“Phillip. Phillip Esterford.”

“Phillip. Don’t you know that tempting serpent got into a lot of trouble - or praise depending on which way you’re looking at it - for the apple trick.”

“And you sir, what name shall I call you? Or will it be Eve for eternity?”

Crowley laughs, surprised and delighted by this tiny fragile human. “What name would you give me? If not then Eve?”

The boy - Phillip squints and says “Antoni.”

“I look Italian?”

“No. You look like an Antoni”

“So it is then. That’s me. Antoni. Charmed to make your acquaintance”

He doesn’t buy the entire cart of apples, can’t figure out how to make that a truly evil act. So he waits. And when Phillip is done for the day, he invites him for a drink.

It is surprising to enjoy this human’s company. He takes a sabbatical from evil. They spend the summer days together, talking, because although he can see the desire behind Phillip’s eyes, he can’t find the temptation in himself.

The boy does everything with love.

When Phillip shyly asks if Antoni is staying in town, does he have someone to stay with? Why not with him? Crowley doesn’t object.

Phillip is a wave of nerves. He has a little one room house on a plot of land behind the orchard.

“Why do you always wear these?” He asks, crowding close to Crowley, his fingers on the rims of the glasses.

“I have-well, my eyes are.” Frightening. Demonic. He knows Phillip has seen them out of the corners but it’s another thing to see them in their entirety.

It is with great care that Phillip tugs them off and sets them down. He takes a deep breath. “They’re beautiful. Strange.” He says, seeing the objection before it becomes words. “But they are beautiful Antoni.”

And then there are lips on him. Not out of temptation, or crazed frenzy. But for Philip it’s love, and for a human in the 14th century. He is not ashamed of that.

“Don’t, we can’t.” Crowley gets out, pushing it away, pushing Phillip away.

“Of course we can. No one can see us. We’re just two companions.” Phillip smiles. “But we don’t have to, if you don’t want to.”

“I should go.”

“Stay, please. Stay and lay with me. We don’t have to-just stay please?”

Crowley can’t help himself. He falls forward and captures the youths lips again. They do not make love, but Crowley knows that when they hit the bed, they will also be ...touching. So he makes an Effort, and suddenly so many new things are rising in him with the flood of never before used emotions and feelings and humanity. It’s a choice.

Phillip falls asleep in the hours between dawn and true darkness. And for the first time, Crowley allows his body to do the same. It’s pleasant, the warmth pressed to his side.

Some deep survival instinct has him awake, feet hitting the floor before he realizes he’s in movement. The ground rattles and Hastur rises upwards. Crowley freezes the room, to ensure that Phillip doesn’t wake.

“What’s this, then?”

“You know, just a mild temptation of the flesh.” Crowley dismisses with a hand, he steps around trying to block Hastur’s gaze.

“Perfect. We’ve got something  _ special. _ A real winner here.” And the demon lifts a tiny glass jar of something oozing and tar like.

“What is it?”

“Something one of the lower demons whipped up. Pestilence themselves would be proud. And you, Crowley, are to spread it.”

“Right. Joy. Gonna..do that.” He reaches to take the offered jar.

“First we’ll try it on the boy, right?”

Hastur unfreezes the form. Phillip moves reaching to where Crowley’s warmth cools on the rushes. The jar unscrews and Hastur looks at Crowley. “Want to do the honors? See how it does?”

“No, you go ahead. Seem pleased as a peach to do it.” Crowley’s heart is in his ribs and he forces it to slow down. His mind is moving too fast and he can’t think of a way out of this.

The dust reaches Phillip. The boy seizes, and coughs. “I’m-I’m not feeling too well.” The illness takes him quickly, sped up by direct contact.

“Come on, leave him. He’ll infect more. We’ll go to the pier and get the sailors.”

“We should dilute it.” Crowley says, trying not to think of how quickly it would spread if they just toss it over some humans and leave them to waste.

Hastur is staring at him uncomprehending.

“Just...so it doesn’t go too fast. Lots of pain is better.”

“Just so. Hail Satan.”

“Right. Hail Satan.” He’s forced to follow Hastur, to assist in spreading the _ Vileness. _

It’s two days before he gets back to Phillip. The boy hasn’t moved, he’s soiled himself, is groaning and baking in fever.

Crowley takes him to the only person who might be able to fix this.

—-

“Crowley” and it’s just a breath out, because it does hurt, to think of having Crowley locked away, tied down and in real pain. But also because Crowley is asking for that, pleading, feeling like punishment would be better than the alternative. Of craving something, and loving something so much it could break you into a thousand pieces and leaving you wanting for more shards.

Crowley flinches, and disappears again. It’s not a trick he uses often, which means the Bentley is still parked out front. Probably.

It feels like he has stolen a secret from Crowley. That moment of desperate, aching love. It feels like something private. There is no help for _that_ right now.

So, Aziraphale gathers up his coat, changes the bandage on his wound, it is still a wound made by another celestial being, so it will heal in time with itself. He has never seen Crowley use keys, so he doesn’t bother to search for them. He takes his time in the shop, tidying up. He’s been closed for seven days straight.

He walks towards the car, almost gets in the passenger side before he has to re-orientate himself. It’s strange sitting in Crowley’s seat. It feels  _ wrong _ .

“I would like to go to Crowley. If you please.” He says to the car, and then puts his hands on the wheel and the pedal, as he has seen Crowley do ever since he got it.

The car lurches forward, and then putters along at a comfortable speed. Although he’s participating in driving, it’s not where his mind is.

————

“You might get the chance someday. Everyone has to let their walls down eventually. You’ll know what I mean when you finally fall in love. It’s different. Don’t count your little Romeo out.”

Oscar is reclining on the couch watching a Dandy young man entertain with a game.

“I don’t know. I really don’t think it’s possible. Did I thank you? It was a very enlightening experience.”

“You did. Several times over the course of the day. And the next. You can thank me again if you like.” Oscar raises his brows.

“No” Aziraphale laughs, warm with wine and good company and love. “I mean it. I hadn’t realized, until ...well, that Love could be that way. And I’m an Angel of Love. And the Eastern Gate, but I like to think it’s more about the Love.”

“You  _ are _ an Angel, aren’t you?” Oscar speaks slowly, a breath puffing outward with smoke curling. He isn’t shocked, and he isn’t drunk.

Aziraphale however, very much is, and it glows from him. Spilling warmth over the den and the crowd. It feels like safety and love when he’s in the room, so Oscar is not entirely surprised at the revelation, though he doesn’t know what to do with the information. He says as much.

“Why,” Aziraphale says, surprised “you just Love, darling. That’s all. You’re terribly good at it.” He doesn’t object when Oscar stands and pulls him up from the couch. They don’t make it to room number 7. Oscar takes him against the wall.

They had walked together that evening, as dusk settled, they headed back to the Club.

“FAGGOT”

The weight of self loathing, had hit him almost as square in the face as the bruise that he would have to wear for days had. Because Oscar believed him, and yet, didn’t,  _ couldn’t. _ It wasn’t for humans to hold onto that knowledge.

Normally, Aziraphale wasn’t attuned to self-hatred. But he’d been basking in Love of self at the club. And that self-hatred reeked of similarity, of yearning, and because it’s so close, he gets a face full.

It’s hot and hateful and it brings tears to his eyes. Because it doesn’t have to be that way, it didn’t have to be all wrapped up and tied and locked away.

Oh, Aziraphale was certainly one to talk. He’d been gallivanting around the Earth with a demon who was incapable of loving him back. But he didn’t have self hatred, it had just taken him awhile and a good buggering to get him to pull that love out and keep it secret and cherished. Even if the Demon could somehow love, if God Herself came down and offered it to Crowley, there is no way he would ever feel that strongly for Aziraphale, and there was certainly no going against heaven and it’s edicts.

One couldn’t defy one’s entire upbringing now,  _ could they _ ?

——-

The car parks itself. “Thank you dear.” He says, offering a little pat on the hood. It’s strange to be coming here alone. He’s only been here twice, and only just recently allowed to enter, to terry and idle inside. Granted, it took the end of the world.

He passed the doorman who glanced at his eyes and then turned away, seen and then NOT seen. Crowley must have an enchantment on the place, or else, just a very good door person. He presses the elevator button, and steps inside looking at his own reflection. It’s grim resolve he sees staring back at him.

He is going to love Crowley and Crowley By somebody’s sake was going to let him. He chanted that, over and over hoping not to lose his resolve. He couldn’t force Crowley. He _ couldn’t. _

But he could ask. And when had the demon ever been able to deny him anything? Only the once.

It’s easy enough to unlock the door and invite himself in. He can hear the soft hum of a television, but Crowley isn’t in the living room. He can feel him now, now that he’s aware. Now that he hasn’t got any silly notions of ‘Demon’s can’t love’ dancing about in his head. Because maybe demons couldn’t love, but Crowley was something else, something  _ more _ . He wasn’t caught in the confines of his label. Not really. He had made choices. And that meant he was different.

Crowley is down the hall and to the right. So that is the way Aziraphale goes, down the hall, as if he has all the time in the world. He lifts his knuckles to knock and decides against it, instead he pushes the door open.

Crowley is sunk neck deep in a bubble bath. It’s filled past the copper brim and water sloshes on the floor when he jerks in surprise at the arrival of his deepest foe.

“I am not your greatest foe you silly serpent.” Aziraphale responded, taking the bottle of whiskey out of his hand and setting it down on the tile. He conjures a stool and sits at the edge of the tub, taking the terry cloth draped over the side and dipping it in the water.

“Here. Lean forward.”

Crowley does, his entire body tight and tense. He makes a face as he forces himself to sober up. It rings in his ears. He jerks again when water trickles down his back, then the rough wet fabric drags down his spine. And it feels so good that Crowley twists his head to make a nasty joke.

“If you say a word, I’ll leave. It’ll be your worst nightmare come to life.” The threat worked once before. Although, then it had been a desperate plea.

Crowley’s jaw clenches, but he doesn’t say anything.

“Did I ever tell you about Oscar Wilde? And the short summer I knew him?”

Crowley’s jaw clenches and unclenches in response, but he doesn’t say anything.

“Oh excellent darling.” Praises Aziraphale and pointedly ignores the way Crowley shifts the bubbles in the tub. He takes Crowley’s arm, examining the thin line of raw flesh from the rope. It isn’t as bad as he feared, though Aziraphale wishes he had done something about it days ago. 

He talks about their first night, while his hands carefully bandage Crowley’s arm. He discusses what it felt like to have a need and a want, and to have them laid bare before someone else. He offers, gently, the bit about having Oscar calling him Angel, and admits how silly he feels- _ felt _ . He scrubs and rubs the spot where Crowley’s wings should be. Up the back of his neck, dipping down a collar bone then curling back around to get his shoulder.

When he’s finished with the story, saying how he’s got several signed copies. He stands, and Crowley looks lost, and very afraid and hopeful and he screams LOVE ME LOVE ME LOVE ME from every pore. Aziraphale smiles.

“Of course my dear. Of course.” He says, pulling Crowley gently from the bath. He dries him slowly and carefully. Ignoring the heavy dripping beast settled between his legs.

“In due time.” He tells it at last, grazing it with the rough towel. And really, why does Crowley even have that? He should have plush ones. Softer than sin. That’s the type of towel Crowley should have.

——

After that night, the look of a beautiful mortal, fragile and dying in his arms...well...Crowley vows to never be so foolish again. He can’t name the feeling in his chest, he can’t name the black feeling in his stomach. Only that it  _ hurts _ . He thinks of willing away the man-shaped thing between his legs, but decides that the pain of this will be his constant reminder.

He will never forget what it felt like to let his guard down. He will never forget that when it comes right down to it, Demons can’t love. And so he will sit for eternity with that feeling of self-hate in his stomach in the most human way imaginable.

He flings himself into evil and temptations and wickedness and pretends that his heart isn’t real.

It only hurts worse when he’s around Aziraphale, the pulsing reminder of what he can never have. So he seeks him out less and less, and then, when he needs to more and more. Until he finds some kind of place in himself where he just stops caring about the pain, revels in it. The desire he can never say, the want he can never have.  _ Love. _

He does not think about Phillip when he can help it. Except Phillip looked like the angel a bit. And the Angel looked like Phillip. And really, he thinks about him all the time.

————

“You see Crowley. What I’m trying to tell you, is that I’ve been terribly foolish. I mean, Love is literally in my job description. And for so many years, I’ve ignored the deep need here beside me. All because I was scared. I was  _ so scared.” _

“But you came back to me, again and again, and I’ll have eternity to love you for that.” He leads the demon to his bed and pushes him gently down. “Sit. Don’t move, if you move the game ends. If you don’t want the game to end, but you are frightened, then you may tell me to stop.”

Crowley knows these games, was there at the invention. But he’s never seen it used like this. Like a weapon against his warring desires. His want for love, the poison making that weaker, stronger, more desperate, more humiliating, against the free cold lines of denial. The latter hurt more the longer the centuries went on, and now there was no hell to fall back on. He’d chosen Aziraphale.  _ Their _ side. Over everything else. He does not move, he locks his gaze on a spot on the wall.

Aziraphale frowns. “No, that won’t do. I want to see you. Look at me.” The command is said with such loving force, and the gentle touch of fingers on his jaw, that he looks upwards into the Angel’s eyes. He is greeted with a bright smile.

“I know this must be hard for you my dear. You’ve been yearning for it for so long. It must feel like being flayed alive from the inside out.” Aziraphale’s tone is ...conversational. Not at all as if he’s talking about flaying.

“Thank you my dear. For being brave.” Aziraphale ducks his head down and presses the softest kiss to the corner of the demon’s eye. He does not shut them. He looks at Aziraphale as if he is drowning.

“Thank you, for staying by me, after all the times I denied you.” Another kiss, on the other side. “Though I imagine that pain served you well.”

“I bet you came back to your little flat, and touched yourself. Thinking of the rejection like a brand.” A kiss to his ear this time.

Breath tumbles brokenly from Crowley’s lips. But he doesn’t speak.

“I did notice. It’s always been you, Crowley. Ever constant. Ever needy. I never had to ask for anything, I could always just...look at you.” Aziraphale does, leaning back and admiring him. “I’m asking you now. Will you let me love you Crowley?”

It takes a minute for Crowley’s throat to work, Adam’s apple bobbing. Finally, he gives up on words and forces out one terrifying jerk of his head.

The way Aziraphale kisses him, Crowley thinks he should have just drank the Holy Water and offed himself before things got this far. Because this was painful, and rich and Slow. And it hurt. To be kissed like he was something bright.

When Aziraphale pulled back. “I need you to answer this truthfully, Crowley. You’re doing so well.” Crowley’s hands are fisted in the sheets. His feet firmly planted on the floor, but bits of his spine keep flinching outward into scales.

“Do you want me, in whatever capacity that is, no matter what I ask or demand of you?” There’s a stillness in the air. “Do you trust me Crowley?”

Crowley jerks his head again but instead of a blinding kiss, Aziraphale pulls all of himself away. Leaving goose pimples to fill the spots where his hands once touched.

“You have to say it out loud. You need to hear yourself say it.”

“Yes. I trust-I trust you.” And this is so much harder then falling because it’s hope. And it’s lifting him up.

Aziraphale reaches out and tugs Crowley’s head forward, it isn’t gentle and it’s the kind of roughness that he wants, but it’s too surprising. He did the Right Thing.

“Oh you precious thing. Thank you. I’m going to take you until you come, spilling on the sheets and withering, and then, I’m going to keep taking you until  **_I_ ** come.”

Crowley feels himself make a noise, and his hands surge forward wrapping about the angel’s waist. He doesn’t correct him, in fact he seems pleased, and drops a few kisses on Crowley’s face.

“I think, first, I’ll have you in supplication. On your knees Crowley, just like the other night.” He brushes the bruised eye as Crowley slides from the bed to the floor in front of Aziraphale, whose thumb dips down to tug at the Demon’s bottom lip.

“None of those wicked little teeth of yours either. But feel free to use the jaw and tongue God gave you. She’d be proud of you using it like this. I know I am.”

Crowley falls upon the task like a man about to go on a long journey. He’s slow, and careful. He licks everything twice, It’s messy, drool clings to his chin and sticks on the base of the Angel’s cock.

“You look  _ filthy _ like that.” Aziraphale pulls at Crowley’s hair, but the way he says filthy, it makes it seem like the greatest praise he can think of. Crowley glances up, mouth full around the tip, and swallows him down half way. 

“Oh yes, look at me. Those eyes. Oh Crowley, you’re one of the finer pieces of celestial energies that She ever made.”

Crowley hates this. It’s too soft. It hurts, he pulls back. He feels the word ‘Stop’ pressing on his lips. This is too much.

“I know what you want. You want me to call you a beast. Tell you that you’re just a droofing, gagging fool, desperate for a good hard fucking after all this time. I’m sure you have spread yourself, fucked yourself, through most centuries. The way you  _ walk. _ ” Aziraphale leans into it. Picking things that by the light of day might mortify him, plucking desires from Crowley’s self-hate. Except...except this between them, is all done in Love. And there was no wickedness in that. Only play and respect and healing. He isn’t sure if Crowley knows that yet. “But that’s not for tonight Crowley. Tonight isn’t about anything as simple as buggering.”

He pulls Crowley up by his hair, an impressive feat since he’s shorter by three inches. It’s easy to toss him in the direction of the bed. Crowley arches into the mattress, the unexpected contact making him twitch and rut.

A hand comes down hard on his ass. “No. Not yet. Soon, I promise, but not now. Pleasure is only for those who earn it. And your mouth is a sinful thing yes, but certainly not that good.” Aziraphale teases as he guides those hips, until Crowley is laying on his back, and he looks up at Aziraphale wide-eyed. His throat works but he clenches his jaw.

“You can speak Crowley, but only a little.”

“Anything you want.  _ Anything. _ ” It’s gravel under a tire, pulled from the depths. It punches low in Aziraphale’s gut.

“I want you, Crowley. I just want you.” He slides forward and plants kisses down his collar bone, further, nips at the tight nipple and gives it a tweak. For the first time since the night in the desert, Aziraphale let’s his Grace shine just a little brighter. Pouring Love into each press of his mouth, he reclaims those lips. Of course it’s not what Crowley wants. Crowley wants punishment. He wants self hatred flung inward on itself saying ‘ _see I told you_ ’ and he’s not going to get that tonight. But this is truly, exactly, what he wants, and the love that pours over his flesh feels hot and warm like tears. 

“You’ve been there for me, Crowley. Everywhere, just when I needed you. Ever constant in your affections. Thank you” 

Tonight, he’s going to get the thing he denies himself most. Love. He’s going to suffocate on it, over and over again.

“I love you Anthony. I love you Crowley. I love you.” He says, pressing their lips together, and their bodies, allowing for full contact, making them arch into one another. The orgasm catches them both by surprise. Crowley giving a gulping breath, a low moan, clutching fingers into Aziraphale’s shoulders until they leave little half moon marks, his hips thrusting upwards and warm stickiness between them. 

There’s a strange little…’poof’ noise and black mist leaks out of the sweat that has gathered on Crowley’s brow, before disappearing. They are both breathing hard. Such a little thing that had such large consequences. Strange, and maybe a tiny bit ineffable.

After a few moments Aziraphale speaks up, “You are  _ rather _ amazing.” Crowley doesn’t respond.

It’s easy to arrange their bodies so that Crowley is tucked into his side, nakedness pressed against the fabric of the angel’s clothes. 

“All theses years trying to be _good,_ thinking I was following Her plan.”

“Aziraphale, you don’t have to. I mean-“ His words fumble, so he settles with “Thank you.”

“I do have to. I’ve wasted so much time. Even when I thought I knew. Oscar always said I wouldn’t understand, until I did. He was human, how could he know?”

“‘Did you really sleep with him?” Crowley asks, instead of trying to untangle the angel’s meaning.

“Yes. Didn’t you with P-“ But Aziraphale stops himself. This bright patch of healing is still to raw to drag Phillip into it. But there is a tension in Crowley’s shoulders that says he’s noticed the shift in conversation. “I’m sorry. I- I only meant-drat.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’ll tell you. Someday. Not-not tonight.” Love makes the Demon feel cracked open and he can handle no more. They’d told him Demon’s couldn’t love, so he wasn’t sure what this was. Because it feels very much like Love. 

“Only if you want to. Get some sleep.”

Crowley thought he smelled roses as he was drifting off, but he didn’t have roses. 


End file.
